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The lush green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, lead to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it originates from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives 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

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and methods – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its expertise in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents 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 ever recorded in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are associated with increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring 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. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant 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 declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to secure validation on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, manufacturing substances that will be used in pesticides, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and other products.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But although international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in different states. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator 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 income source of fishing populations in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant fails to operate and factories release contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the plant in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a proposal to ban the manufacture, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. 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 matter should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, patents and machinery have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.

“The area has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”