🔗 Share this article

The lush green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it comes from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an region inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were convicted at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents had been subjected through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

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 specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

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

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in different states. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. 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 centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a proposal to prohibit the production, import and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be driving the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.

“That region has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s always a risk.”