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

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it originates from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and other charges and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high levels of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, showed among the top levels of PFAS ever recorded in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was shocked.

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

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorinated compounds 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 goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, such as 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 demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though global focus is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist 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.”

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 set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in the countryside, the facility cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have issued several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the production, import and utilization 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 University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are facing an unsafe environment for years to come.

“The area has seen enough ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”