🔗 Share this article

The lush tropical forest and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for contaminating water sources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been subjected through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I looked at a catalog of health issues related to Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are associated with higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that concentrations of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though global focus is growing, in India the matter is not on the political agenda yet.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the site in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the sector to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to move in countries where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.

“The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s always a risk.”