🔗 Share this article Where Will a Western Manufacturing Facility Which Polluted Drinking Water Move On? To India The lush green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, 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 former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an area inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated. Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and processes – all required components to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again. A Toxic Legacy Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been subjected through potable water. The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS ever recorded in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti. Ex-employee Ilario Ermetti had elevated levels of PFAS in his blood. High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are associated with higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure. Community Concerns Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked. “Being parents, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.” Business Shift Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”. Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. 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 properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries. 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 specialty chemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC. Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be used in agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and other products. Environmental Oversight Investigations demonstrate that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But although international attention is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority. “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 academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, 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 frequently criticized. “The local villages have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and industries release contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued several warning letters to the site in recent years. Global Implications In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to ban the manufacture, importation and use of over ten thousand 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 issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in countries where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.” Persistent Threats Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come. “That region has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”