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The dense tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, lead to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an area inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, 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 forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high levels of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through potable 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 documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the blood are linked to increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although international attention is growing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in different states. But these studies are limited in scope, 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 fisher folk communities in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and factories discharge polluted water straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, importation and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and machinery have been relocated to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”