🔗 Share this article

The dense tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, lead to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it originates from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following among the most severe ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

What are PFAS, how toxic are they and how do you become exposed?

And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and methods – all required components to produce forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and other products.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, especially near production sites. But even though global focus is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and factories release contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a proposal to ban the manufacture, import and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be driving the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect populations that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”