To Which Location Will a Western Manufacturing Facility Which Polluted Water Supplies Move On? Heading to India
The dense tropical forest and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands against the sky.
This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an region inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives 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
Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and methods – all required components to produce forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to resume PFAS production.
A Toxic Legacy
Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been subjected through drinking water.
The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.
Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the blood are linked to higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. 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 persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment 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
Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to shareholders. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s management downplayed environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to EU regulations”.
Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the company went bankrupt.
While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties 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 commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.
Strategic Expansion
By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy 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 show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including 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 pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and other products.
Environmental Oversight
Investigations demonstrate that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.
“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies are limited in scope, 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 industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.
The chemical district is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.
“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and industries release polluted water straight into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have issued multiple notices to the site in recent years.
Global Implications
In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think 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 power that these global corporations have to move in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”
Persistent Threats
Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.
“The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”