In the competitive landscape of specialty chemicals, the "China+1" strategy has led many firms to seek alternative manufacturing hubs. For Laxmi Organic Industries, a dominant Indian player in acetyl and specialty intermediates, this expansion recently took a controversial turn with its foray into the Indian fluorochemicals market.
The Deal
June 2019 saw the Indian chemical manufacturing company, Laxmi Organic Industries, make a substantial strategic acquisition when it bought the assets of the insolvent Italian company, Miteni S.p.A. This acquisition was done through Laxmi Organic Industries' subsidiary company, Viva Lifesciences, and was to provide the company with an immediate foothold in the lucrative fluorospecialty industry. The acquisition involved the sale of world-class manufacturing facilities, a pool of over 100 different formulation products, 14 patents, and 41 REACH Registrations. By early 2023, the whole Italian plant had been packed into over 300 freight containers that had shipped to Mumbai to be reconstructed at Laxmi Organic Industries' location in the Lote Parshuram industrial area in the Maharashtra State.
PFAS and Its Industrial Applications
PFAS stands for Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl substances and is used in high-performance fluoropolymers like Teflon, textiles, non-sticking compounds, and firefighting foams. The Lote Parshuram plant uses “Electrochemical Fluorination Technology,” which has already been acquired from Miteni, to meet this upcoming order. By the start of 2025, this plant is reportedly operating at full capacity to produce chemicals for foreign companies in the pest control, dyes, and cosmetics sectors.
The Controversy
The involvement of Italian machinery in Ratnagiri in late 2025 generated a series of local and political protests. Critics, such as local political leaders, alleged that "tainted" machinery from Italy was polluting local air with "forever chemicals" even before they were operational. The fear of local residents was that the same industrial pollution that led to Miteni's collapse in Europe was being outsourced to a place where regulatory measures might be less stringent. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board had to send a notice to Laxmi Organics regarding ensuring that the imported machinery had fulfilled any such environmental clearance.
The Miteni Incident/Disaster in Italy
The source of Laxmi's new production capacity, the Miteni plant in Trissino, Italy, left behind a catastrophic environmental legacy. For years, the plant has been continuously discharging PFAS into the groundwater, thus polluting a 180 square-kilometer basin. In the affected region of Veneto, the drinking and irrigation water of 350,000 people was affected. Research was undertaken between 1980 and 2013, indicating the serious relationship between exposure to the pollution and the increased incidence of kidney cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes, and cardio-vascular diseases. A study indicated that the disaster led to the death of 4,000 people.
Why Was It Banned in Italy?
The plant was compelled to close its operations in 2018 when Miteni filed for bankruptcy as a result of legal repercussions and heavy losses attributed to the environmental damage. In June of 2025, a criminal case was ruled on by the Court of Assizes of Vicenza, where a record was set with the conviction of 11 ex-executives to a combined term of 141 years in jail. The ex-executives were accused of deliberately poisoning water and causing an environmental disaster. This case broke new ground, where corporate executives could be held accountable for industrial-scale chemical contamination, pushing the Italian government to set strict standards for drinking water standards, which exceeded previous levels.
Policies regarding PFAS in India
Currently, India is undergoing transition in terms of regulatory policies for persistent chemicals. At the time that the Miteni equipment was installed at Ratnagiri, there were no regulations or standards in India to regulate PFAS in industrial waste or in drinking water. Nevertheless, in October 2025, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India proposed an amendment to prohibit the addition of PFAS in food contact materials, including packaging. Another proposed piece of legislation is The Draft Indian Chemicals (Management and Safety) Rules, under which all industrial chemicals will have to be registered for assessment.
In contrast, Policies in Other Part of the World
Western countries have pushed forward with very stringent policies against these compounds. In April 2024, for example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established federal limits for these compounds with concentrations as low as 4 parts per trillion for legacy PFAS compounds PFOA and PFOS. On the other hand, it seems that the European Union is considering a universal ban within its REACH system for the phase out of around 10,000 PFAS chemicals by the years 2026-2027. These global shifts have created a regulatory squeeze, driving high-risk chemical manufacturing toward regions with developing oversight frameworks.
