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The dense green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, lead to a small hill where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it originates from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for polluting water resources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and other charges and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

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Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – all required components to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the factory has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been subjected through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, showed one of the highest concentrations 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,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are associated with higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues 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 children’s blood showed high levels of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

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

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to secure validation on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is increasing, in India the matter 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 currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

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 established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.

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

“The local villages have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and factories discharge polluted water straight into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have issued multiple notices to the site in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the production, import and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the industry to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets 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 move in nations where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

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 linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”