To Which Location Will a Western Manufacturing Facility Which Polluted Drinking Water Go Next? To India

The dense tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a factory looms under the open sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment 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 nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and methods – all required components to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, wedged between 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 advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. 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 found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders 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 learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Records of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While 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 firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches 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 completely active, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Studies demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around production sites. But although international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present 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 performed research in various regions. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

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 livelihood of fishing populations 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 not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant cannot function and factories release polluted water directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to ban the production, importation and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the industry to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the academic institution. “I believe that this issue should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in countries where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s always a risk.”