The lush green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.
This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it originates from the former Miteni factory 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 persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.
Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes
And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and methods – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to resume PFAS production.
An Environmental Burden
Once known for its expertise in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been subjected through potable water.
The worst-affected were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, 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 discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.
High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are associated with increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.
Community Concerns
Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after learning her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked.
“As mothers, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”
Business Shift
Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets 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, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives downplayed ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.
Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and false accounting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in prison. Per a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to 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 shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.
Growth Plans
By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to firms 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, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.
Environmental Oversight
Investigations have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is growing, in India the matter is not on the political agenda yet.
“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in different states. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”
Local Impact
Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.
The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.
“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and factories release polluted water straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.
International Ramifications
In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to prohibit the manufacture, import and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, 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 polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations.
“That region has experienced sufficient environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s always a risk.”
