🔗 Share this article

The dense green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its equipment is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following one of the worst ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and methods – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents had been subjected through potable water.

The worst-affected 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 human blood. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are associated with increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, such as 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 used in agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, head 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 livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and industries release contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the site in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the manufacture, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. 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 matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in countries where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for years to come.

“That region has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”