🔗 Share this article

The dense green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water sources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and methods – all required components to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists 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 own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are associated with higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

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

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Transcripts of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO 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 prison. According to a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

Although 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 company was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, 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 location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“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. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. But this work are limited in scope, 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 income source of fishing populations in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a proposal to prohibit the production, import and utilization of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be driving the industry to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.

“The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”