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The lush green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands 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 following among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and other charges and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

What are PFAS, how toxic are they and how do you become exposed?

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and methods – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave 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 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 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 specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her children’s blood showed high levels of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was being shipped heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO 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. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan 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 standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be used in agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. 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 not present in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator 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 income source of fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and factories release polluted water directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have issued multiple notices to the plant in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to ban the production, import and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. 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 investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these global corporations have to move in countries where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

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 production are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”