The dense tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.
This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is far from new: it comes from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, 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 additional offenses and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.
Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes
Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between villages and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.
A Toxic Legacy
Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high levels of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.
The worst-affected were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, showed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas documented in blood samples. “When the story came to light, 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, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.
Public Apprehensions
Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.
“As mothers, as females, 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 Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with EU regulations”.
Goenka is a member 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 given six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the firm’s collapse.
While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review 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 product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.
Strategic Expansion
By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing 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 used in agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, beauty products and other products.
Regulatory Context
Investigations have shown that concentrations of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, especially near manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is growing, 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 not recognised by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”
Regional Consequences
Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.
The industrial area is served by 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 frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and industries discharge contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.
International Ramifications
In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to ban the manufacture, importation and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the sector to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”
Persistent Threats
Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.
“That region has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”
