To Which Location Does a European Manufacturing Facility Which Polluted Water Supplies Move On? To India

The dense green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead 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 former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the local tribunal of environmental damage 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, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – everything needed 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

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through potable water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, showed among the top levels of Pfas documented in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are associated with increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as women, 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 branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. 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. Records of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s executives downplayed environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “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.”

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 income source of fishing populations in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and industries release contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the plant in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to prohibit the production, import 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 matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these global corporations have to move in countries where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect populations that are facing an unsafe environment for years to come.

“The area has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”