Pfas is a complex group of more than 10,000 synthetic chemicals that have been in use since the 1950s in products such as cookware, packaging, clothes, carpets, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, power grids and so on. While PFAS can be avoided in products such as clothing and cosmetics, they are said to be extremely hard to replace in electronic products including smartphones, products in the automotive industry such as electric vehicle batteries, in medical implants and devices such as catheters and stents, among others.
Activists and politicians from opposition parties are questioning how a plant shut down in Italy for causing pollution can be allowed to operate in India through a different company.
Rohit Pawar, MLA from the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), called on the government to “immediately shut down the plant taking into account the potential danger”, saying “harmful PFAS are being emitted from it”.
Maharashtra Industries Minister Uday Samant, while speaking to reporters, has assured that a committee of experts will look at the manufacturing unit and nothing harmful will be permitted.
“There are talks about a project that is going to come to Lote Parshuram. If a project is not beneficial for my Chiplun residents, then I will never let it come. But we should take all the information first,” Samant said, speaking at a public function in his home district, Ratnagiri, Tuesday.
The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has set up a probe, which it says is “routine” to ensure compliance with norms.
Laxmi Organic Industries, a global supplier of essential and speciality chemicals, maintains that it has all the necessary approvals and “operates in compliance with applicable Indian environmental, safety, and regulatory requirements and has received all statutory approvals since inception”.
In response to a detailed questionnaire by ThePrint, the company said the allegations drawing comparison between its Lote Parshuram operations and those of Miteni are “inaccurate and misleading from the perspectives of effluent treatment and disposal and product portfolio”.
“The Miteni incident involved the direct discharge of wastewater into rivers over several decades, leading to significant environmental and health impacts. Such practices are not permissible under India’s stringent regulatory framework, which mandates rigorous environmental clearances, continuous monitoring and strict compliance standards,” it stated.
Speaking to ThePrint, Sanjay Bhuskute, spokesperson of MPCB, said the company has all the required clearances to operate.
“The company has got its paperwork in place. Forever chemicals are not banned in India. When it comes to causing pollution, if we find any anomaly then we will act on it, give a show-cause notice, closure notice and so on. Our committee of experts had gone there for a routine inspection last week to see if there are any pollution control violations. We will get a report soon.”
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The ‘forever’ chemicals market
PFAS chemicals are used because they provide several properties at the same time that are very hard to find in any other single chemical. They repel both water and oil, tolerate extreme heat conditions, strong acids and alkalis, they reduce friction. They also don’t easily break down, which ensures long life and less maintenance in critical systems, but which is also what raises environmental and health concerns.
The United States’ National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences explains that PFAS molecules have a chain of linked carbon and fluorine atoms and because the carbon-fluoride bonds are strong, these chemicals do not easily degrade in the environment. This is what has earned them the moniker of “forever” chemicals.
“Human exposure to PFAS is widespread but variable by geography and occupation,” the institute states. “People are most likely exposed to these chemicals by consuming PFAS-contaminated water or food, using products made with PFAS, or breathing air containing PFAS. Because PFAS breaks down slowly, if at all, people and animals are repeatedly exposed to them, and blood levels of some PFAS can build up over time.”
According to the institute, researchers find it difficult to study the impact of PFAS chemicals on human health as the science keeps evolving and there are many types of such chemicals. However, the research so far shows “possible links between human exposure to certain PFAS chemicals and some adverse health outcomes”. These include altered metabolism, increased risk of some cancers and reduced ability to fight infections.
Many countries such as those in the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea and certain US states have brought in restrictions around certain PFAS and are strengthening the regulation around their use. France has banned them in cosmetics, consumer textiles and footwear, while Denmark has banned the use of “forever” chemicals in food packaging.
In its response to ThePrint, Laxmi Organic said the majority of PFAS manufactured and used across the world are not banned, but are regulated and produced under strict environmental and safety controls.
“Restrictions were introduced primarily because certain older PFAS were found to persist in the environment when released without proper controls over long periods of time. The concern is environmental accumulation, not acute toxicity. These regulatory actions led to improved manufacturing practices, better containment, closed loop systems and the development of newer generation PFAS with improved environmental profiles,” the company said.
Miteni Spa, based in Italy’s Vicenza province, produced PFAS chemicals and had been operating since 1964. In 2013, the regional environment protection agency first confirmed contamination of groundwater and drinking water in the area by Miteni.
In June this year, a Vicenza court sentenced former managers and executives of Miteni and its parent companies to a total of 141 years in prison, establishing criminal liability for widespread PFAS contamination and poisoning of water resources.
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Laxmi Organic’s ‘forever’ chemicals business
While the court case was underway, Miteni started facing severe financial issues and filed for bankruptcy in 2018. A year later, Lakshmi Organic acquired the assets, plant and machinery, design and operating paperwork, registrations and patents of Miteni, according to its 2021 Initial Public Offering (IPO) note, which ThePrint has seen.
The note says the assets acquired from Miteni include a library of more than 100 products, including those that were in research and development, and scale-up stages. The acquisition also included 14 patents, 41 REACH registrations (European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, Restriction of Chemicals) and all the formulations, production and maintenance data as well as research and development data.
“The company intends to capture the market share of Miteni given its existing chemistries and past customer base. It has also appointed a consultant in Italy to inter alia liaise for it and facilitate a speedy and successful handover, dismantling and relocation of the assets acquired as well as to obtain business development and marketing support in Europe,” it states in the IPO note.
A research note by HDFC Securities in July 2024 stated that of Miteni’s 100-odd products, Laxmi Organic has chosen to manufacture 10 initially and all these products are being manufactured for the first time in India. It added that the company had invested a total of Rs 5.5 billion (Rs 550 crore) in the Lote Parshuram plant, which spans 30 acres, of which about 50 percent is being used as of now.
According to the research note, construction at the Lote Parshuram site started in the third quarter of fiscal 2019-20 and mechanical work was completed by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023-24.
The company has taken environmental clearance for 20-odd products, which include PFAS and non-PFAS products.
A source closely related with the company told ThePrint that Laxmi Organic is not manufacturing all of these products at the moment and these are just enabling approvals.
Going by the company’s internal calculations, the source said, by fiscal 2027, PFAS-related products are estimated to be about 0.15 per cent of its product basket. The company is mainly in the market of acetyl intermediates and speciality intermediates.
In its response to ThePrint, Laxmi Organic said the company did not acquire Miteni for its product portfolio, but for specific technological capabilities which the company has since “reengineered, upgraded and deployed at Lote Parshuram under fresh Indian regulatory approvals”.
“The company has received EC (environment clearance) approvals for products from its existing portfolio, acquired portfolio and new products developed. Currently, some products are in trial stage or ramping up stage, all well within the limits of received consents,” it stated.
The company, established in 1989, reported a revenue of Rs 2,944.61 in 2024-25 and a net profit of Rs 118.02 crore.
Concerns around effluent treatment
The Lote Parshuram industrial area, developed in 1986, is spread over 2,700 acres and has about 450 industrial units. A common effluent treatment plant was set up there in 2003 by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) with a capacity of 4.5 million litres a day and was upgraded in 2018 to 10 million litres a day.
The source at Laxmi Organic told ThePrint that effluents from the Lote Parshuram plant are discharged in the common effluent treatment plant and are transported by state-appointed contractors.
An MPCB official who did not wish to be named said: “It seems concerns around the Miteni plant were around the discharge of effluents leading to water and soil pollution. Our job here is to ensure that there are no violations on that front.”
However, there is a larger problem.
Vinay Natu, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Ratnagiri district president and former MLA, told ThePrint that overall compliance of the companies at Lote Parshuram is an issue.
“There are many incidents of boiler blasts, leakages of chemicals that sometimes go unreported at Lote Parshuram. The common effluent treatment plant is also not very effective and is considered inadequate as well,” Natu said.
In 2023, the National Green Tribunal in an order on the Lote Parshuram common effluent treatment plant said it “was not conforming to the discharge standards mostly since its inception in 2003”.
The tribunal compiled an environmental compensation of Rs 3.68 crore to be payable by the operator for violating environment norms between April 2018 and April 2023.
The tribunal said that of the 252 samples taken during this period, the common effluent treatment plant had complied with discharge standards in 165 cases and not complied in 87 samples. The order said the operator can even consider collecting a part of the compensation from defaulting industries.
According to Natu, information about which product companies have got clearance and what products they are actually producing, should be declared in the public domain every year.
“Similarly, information about how much and what kind of solid waste and liquid waste is generated, and what treatment is being done on this waste, should also be declared in the public domain by the government department concerned,” Natu said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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