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The lush tropical forest and rust-red hills of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, give way to a small hill 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 defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and methods – everything needed to produce forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its expertise in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents had been exposed through drinking water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “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 higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood showed high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to shareholders. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, producing chemicals that will be utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

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 livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported 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 industries release contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent multiple notices to the site in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to prohibit the production, importation and use of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these global corporations have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”