A dry dock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, and repair of ships, boats, and other watercraft.

          The country's first state-of-the-art dry dock which was successfully tested with the warship INS kolkata. Naval officers said that the dock will be dedicated to the Indian naval command and has the capacity to dock the aircraft carrier, INS vikramaditya, for repair and maintenance. With the length of 281 meters, width of 45 meters and depth of close to 17 meters, almost equivalent to a five-storey building, the dry dock is nothing short of a construction marvel.

               It will not only reduce vessel maintenance expenses that the navy incurs at private shipyards, but will also enhance defense capability to load advanced arms and ammunition onto out premier warships. The dock is equipped with robotic machinery, can over haul ships in quick succession. It has the facility to enable container trucks carrying ship spare parts to station themselves along repair bays, so that engineers don't have to waste time procuring the parts from a distance. 

      Unlike the other dry docks, the new one is built out into the sea and is surrounded with saline water on three sides. The other docks are landwards and only open into the sea.

          It is country's only naval dry dock with sea on the three sides and only dry dock where aircraft carrier can be refurbished, Hundred olympic size swimming pools can be filled with water from the dry dock when it is full, it also has the largest floating lock gate.