Where Does a European Manufacturing Facility Which Polluted Drinking Water Move On? To India

The dense green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following one of the worst ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an area home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

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Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of residents had been subjected through drinking 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 documented in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

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

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan clearly outlined the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But even though global focus is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, 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 livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.

The industrial area is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and factories release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the site in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be driving the industry to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been transferred 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 nations where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

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 linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.

“The area has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”