🔗 Share this article

The lush green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, lead to a small hill where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for contaminating water sources in an region inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and other charges and given prison sentences, 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 patents and processes – all required components to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high levels 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 worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, showed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a list of medical conditions 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 cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

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

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, 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. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties 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 compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the quality 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.

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

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies 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 South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fishing populations in this region 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 consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and factories release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the site in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a proposal to ban the manufacture, import and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed 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 already struggling with an hazardous setting for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”