Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemical compounds that contain multiple carbon-fluorine bonds. PFAS materials are used in coatings, textiles, and several industrial products. They are also notorious for resisting degradation and can contaminate the environment for a very long time.
Study coauthor Indumathi M. Nambi, a professor of environmental engineering, suggested the increase may reflect unidentified precursors that turned into more stable PFAS inside the plant. The study did not quantify those precursors. Finding PFAS in water does not, by itself, tell us how much of a health risk it poses. That depends on the type of PFAS, the dose, duration of exposure, and route of exposure. Both PFOA and PFOS are types of PFAS materials. In a study published in February this year a team that included Dr.
In a 2025 review in the J ournal of Hazardous Materials Advances , scientists examined monitoring and regulations across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. At the treatment plant, concentrations of all eight target PFAS were 5% to 103% higher in treated water than in raw water. On July 16 this year, researchers from GITAM (Deemed to be) University, Hyderabad, and from Canada and the U.S. reported the results of testing 77 kinds of PFAS in seawater and sewage from around Visakhapatnam. The findings, published in npj Emerging Contaminants , showed the presence of 38 compounds, with concentrations in sewage ranging from low to very high. The team also used a model to estimate that sewage accounted for about 41% of median PFAS concentrations along the coast. In its 2025 monograph , the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as ‘carcinogenic to humans’ and perfluorooctanesulfonic (PFOS) as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’. Nambi found that a mix of 24 PFAS-compounds — including long- and short-chain PFAS molecules and their precursors — delayed the hatching of zebrafish eggs, inhibited the offspring’s growth, accumulated in their blood, and reduced their heart rates. He said CSIR-IITR is participating in a UNEP-funded National Implementation Plan to build baseline data on PFAS in environmental matrices and consumer products, and has developed capabilities to detect 50 multi-class PFAS molecules across different matrices.
The review’s first author, Rajneesh Kumar Gautam, of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, said the evidence establishes that PFAS contamination in India is a legitimate concern but that its national extent is poorly defined, thanks in part to differences in the way different research groups test and analyse PFAS. GITAM assistant professor and study coauthor Manoj Rayaroth said distinguishing municipal sewage from industrial inputs would require systematic sampling around the mixing points. Chirag Dhara, assistant professor at Krea University in Sri City, said incomplete exposure data should not delay controls on PFAS whose hazards are already well established. Anbumani Sadasivam, principal scientist at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, said India lacks sufficient baseline data to reliably estimate PFAS exposure.
