🔗 Share this article

The dense green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it originates from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an area 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.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

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

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS ever recorded in human blood. “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 bloodstream are linked to increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

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 patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, 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 recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, producing chemicals that will be utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But although international attention is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams 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, 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 established in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

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

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in the countryside, the plant cannot function and factories release polluted water straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the plant in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to ban the production, importation and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect populations that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

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