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The lush tropical forest and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its patents and processes – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of inhabitants had been subjected through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, showed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to increased risk of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after learning her children’s blood showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

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

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation 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. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan clearly outlined the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But although global focus is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in various regions. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

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 set up in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant fails to operate and industries discharge polluted water directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to prohibit the production, import and use of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be driving the sector to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the influence that these global corporations have to move in nations 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 linked to PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact populations that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for years to come.

“That region has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”