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The dense tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its equipment is not: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was brought to trial for polluting water resources in an region inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and methods – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, displayed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions related to PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are associated with higher chances of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.”

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant 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 recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting 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 months before the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, producing chemicals that will be used in pesticides, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government as of today,” 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 restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and industries discharge contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have issued multiple notices to the site in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to ban the manufacture, import and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, per 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 production, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these global corporations 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 company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

“That region has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s always a risk.”