India is not short of industrial parks or plans to build more. The India Industrial Land Bank maps 4,523 parks across 770,000 hectares, including306 plug-and-play parks and 20 industrial parks and smart cities led by the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation. In August 2024, the Cabinet approved 12 more industrial cities across 10 states, worth ₹28,602 crore and covering about 10,500 hectares. Two are in Uttar Pradesh, at Agra and Prayagraj. Dholera in Gujarat, a flagship project, spans 920 sq km, has a platinum green rating from the Indian Green Building Council and plans a 4,400 MW solar park, of which 300 MW is commissioned.

The question is whether these projects are underpinned by a vision comparable to Hangzhou's.

Official material on flagship projects like Dholera refers to smart grids, underground power networks, zero-wastewater discharge and renewable energy integration. The third edition of India's industrial park rating system, launched in September 2025, also places greater emphasis on sustainability and green infrastructure. But there is scope to go further. Industrial parks could adopt explicit targets for the share of renewable electricity, energy storage, peak-demand management and digital integration, alongside real-time monitoring of energy use and emissions.

There is an important distinction between generating renewable power and integrating it into an industrial park's energy system. Dholera's solar park supplies electricity to the state grid. Hangzhou, by contrast, seeks to coordinate energy generation, storage and consumption within the park itself. The latter approach makes the industrial estate, rather than just the individual factory or the electricity grid, the unit of energy management.

India need not replicate Hangzhou's technology choices. But the underlying idea is transferable. An industrial park could be assessed not merely by the land it develops, the roads it builds or the factories it attracts, but also by how it generates, stores and distributes energy, manages materials and waste, and protects its natural surroundings.

The Hangzhou park's exhibition describes energy as the bloodstream, industry as the skeleton and digitalisation as the nervous system. Making this vision work requires developers, manufacturers, utilities and government agencies to act together. New industrial cities, including those planned at Agra and Prayagraj, have an opportunity to incorporate such systems from the outset. Existing industrial clusters could begin with energy audits, followed by shared infrastructure and real-time monitoring platforms.

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