Key Points
A chemical plant in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district uses machinery sourced from the Italian firm Miteni, which was shut down in Europe after a major PFAS contamination scandal, raising concerns over toxic emissions and regulatory oversight.
Equipment from the plant was purchased by the Indian company Laxmi Organic Chemicals after Miteni went bankrupt. In an environmental assessment report from 2019, the plant listed many of the same chemicals for production as Miteni.
The controversy has highlighted broader concerns about the relocation of polluting industrial equipment from Europe to India and the absence of specific PFAS regulations in India, prompting renewed debate on environmental safeguards and public health risks.
In 2018, one of Italy’s worst environmental disasters came to light when Miteni, a chemical company, was shut down for contaminating the Vicenza region with PFAS chemicals. Over 3 lakh people were impacted, and company executives were sentenced to a cumulative 141 years in prison.
Now, seven years later, an Indian firm – Laxmi Organic Chemicals – has set up a chemical plant in Lote Parashuram industrial area of Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district. The plant uses the same machinery from the Miteni plant to produce the same toxic PFAS chemicals in a different country under laxer environmental laws.
The plant is located around 225 kilometres south of Mumbai, along the Konkan coast and adjacent to the Western Ghats – an ecologically sensitive region in close proximity to rural settlements. PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are also called ‘forever chemicals’ – they are hazardous, resistant to degradation, build up in the environment, and have been linked to cancer, organ damage, and reproductive disorders.
Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) MLA Rohit Pawar claimed on X that the plant is using equipment sourced from Miteni, which is emitting hazardous PFAS compounds in Ratnagiri, posing serious environmental and public health risks.
Pawar said that Miteni’s operations in Italy had contaminated water reservoirs in the Vicenza region, affecting more than 3 lakh people and triggering sustained public protests that ultimately forced the company to shut down. He claimed that the same machinery was later acquired by Laxmi Organic Chemicals and installed at the Ratnagiri facility.
Pawar questioned how regulatory permissions were granted for the plant, especially given that India does not have specific laws governing PFAS chemicals. He argued that allowing the import and reuse of such machinery amounted to exposing Indian communities to risks that European regulators had deemed unacceptable.
Responding to the allegations, Maharashtra Industries Minister Uday Samant rejected claims that PFAS chemicals are being produced at the Ratnagiri plant. Speaking to a television news channel, Samant said he would not permit any hazardous project to operate in the Konkan coastal belt.
Samant said he had sought a report from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) after media reports highlighted the controversy. According to the minister, the MPCB informed him that PFAS chemicals had not been manufactured at the plant so far. He added that authorities are examining whether the machinery had received the necessary clearances and that further verification is underway to assess compliance with environmental norms and regulatory approvals.
However, an article by The Guardian from October 2025 revealed that an environmental assessment report of the plant from 2019 clearly listed chemicals for production, which matched Miteni’s product list. The article further alleged that the plant has been in operation since early 2025, producing fluorochemicals that will be used in pesticides, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, amongst other products.
Miteni was once a major producer of advanced fluorochemicals in Italy. Established in the 1960s, the company shut down its factory in Vicenza in 2018 after decades of PFAS production led to extensive groundwater contamination across the Veneto region. Scientific investigations found extraordinarily high levels of PFAS in wastewater, and more than 3.5 lakh residents were exposed through drinking water.
In 2024, former executives of Miteni were convicted by an Italian court for environmental pollution and related offences. Workers at the plant were among the worst affected, with one recording the highest PFAS concentration in blood ever seen. The exposure has been linked to cancer, liver and kidney damage, cardiovascular disease and reproductive disorders.
After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets, including machinery, patents and production processes, were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of Laxmi Organic Industries. By early 2023, the equipment was shipped to India and installed at the Lote Parashuram MIDC site.
According to The Guardian, Laxmi Organic had indicated plans as early as 2018 to produce fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s product range. By 2021, the company’s strategy documents explicitly stated an intention to capture Miteni’s market share in PFAS and related chemicals.
The same year, Laxmi Organic Italy was founded. Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting, was appointed to the board. Harshvardhan Goenka, president of Laxmi Organic Chemicals, reportedly downplayed environmental concerns of the Miteni disaster to shareholders, saying that the company had followed European environmental standards.
The Ratnagiri dispute has also been framed within a wider global trend of polluting industrial infrastructure being relocated from the Global North, with stricter environmental concerns, to the Global South. Across Europe, chemical plants producing hazardous materials are being dismantled under regulatory and public pressure.
Facilities operated by global chemical firms are being shut down in Germany, the United Kingdom and other European countries, with equipment and production units sold off to buyers in industrial hubs across India. Regions such as Dahej, Mangaluru, Visakhapatnam, Panipat and Paradeep have emerged as destinations for these relocated assets.
Critics describe this trend as “pollution colonialism”, arguing that Europe is cleaning up its environment by exporting toxic risks to countries with weaker enforcement frameworks. Supporters of such investments, however, frame them as industrial modernisation and technology transfer under initiatives like “Make in India”.
Among industrial pollutants, PFAS stand out because of their persistence and global spread. These chemicals are now detected in rainwater, Arctic snow and the blood of around 97% of humans worldwide. Once released, they accumulate in soil, water, crops and animal tissue, entering the food chain and remaining for generations.
India currently lacks specific regulatory standards governing PFAS production, use or disposal. Environmental assessments and pollution controls rely on broader frameworks that critics say are inadequate to deal with chemicals that are nearly impossible to remediate once contamination occurs.
Environmental groups warn that allowing PFAS related production near ecologically sensitive zones could lead to irreversible damage to groundwater, agriculture and coastal ecosystems. They argue that if contamination similar to the Veneto region occurs in densely populated areas of India, the scale of harm would be far greater.
(DS)
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