Where Will a European Chemical Plant Which Polluted Drinking Water Go Next? To India

The dense green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an area inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, wedged between villages and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated concentrations 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 one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a catalog of health issues related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the blood are associated with increased risk 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 nurse and activist with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and given six years and four months in jail. According to a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, 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 utilized for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Studies demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, especially near production sites. But although global focus is growing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in various regions. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. 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 cannot function and factories release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a proposal to ban the production, importation and utilization of over ten thousand 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 examined, because the reality that Miteni’s production, 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.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s always a risk.”