🔗 Share this article

The dense green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory 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 home to 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

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 Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. 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 looked at a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are linked to higher chances of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

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

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

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch 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 heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to shareholders. Records of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting 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 months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company 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 clearly outlined the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms 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, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is growing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“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 academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in different states. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “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 industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility 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 the countryside, the plant cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the production, importation and utilization of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. 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 believe that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these global corporations have to move in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

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