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The lush tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for polluting water resources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and other charges and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

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Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and methods – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the blood are associated with higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests indicated high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents 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.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to shareholders. Records of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s executives 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 board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty 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 speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

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 production of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to firms 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 utilized for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But even though international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. 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 manufacturing zone “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 industrial area is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in the countryside, the plant fails to operate and industries release polluted water directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent multiple notices to the site in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a proposal to prohibit the production, importation and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact populations that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

“That region has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”