🔗 Share this article

The dense tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an region inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. 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 among the top levels of PFAS documented in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

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

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Records of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

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

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around production sites. But although global focus 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 Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities 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 malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and factories release contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the production, importation and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the sector to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these global corporations have to move in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact populations that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for years to come.

“The area has seen enough ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”