The National Research Centre for Banana is an ISO 9001:2015 certified institute that has been advancing banana and plantain research since 1993. Its website had grown organically over two decades — and no longer reflected the institute's standing, accessibility obligations, or the volume of content it published.
Client
ICAR-National Research Centre for Banana
Sector
Government · Agricultural research
Scope
Website Revamp, CMS Migration, Hosting & Support
Location
Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu
The Problem
NRCB's work spans crop improvement, production, post-harvest management, and crop protection. It maintains a national banana gene bank, runs externally funded projects, publishes research findings, coordinates AICRP trials across the country, and engages directly with farmers through training programmes and Kisan Melas.[reference:0]
The website was expected to serve all of that — researchers, farmers, students, policymakers, media, and the public — through an interface designed in a different era of the web.
Three specific problems had become untenable:
The mandate was straightforward: rebuild the site on a platform the institute could actually maintain, meet the government's accessibility standards, and give the content room to breathe.
Part One — Website Revamp
The old site organised content by internal departments and administrative categories. Visitors — whether a farmer looking for a disease-resistant variety or a researcher looking for a publication — had to navigate a hierarchy that made sense to the institute, not to them.
We rebuilt the information architecture around user tasks: find a variety, read a publication, apply for a job, access a service, learn about the institute.
Four top-level sections — Research, Technologies, Services, and About — each with clear sub-categories. A farmer looking for "banana varieties" reaches them in two clicks. A researcher looking for "annual reports" reaches them in two clicks. The site serves both audiences without compromising either.
Semantic HTML throughout, descriptive alt text on all images, keyboard-navigable menus, ARIA labels where needed, and colour contrast checked against WCAG 2.0 AA. The site now works with screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver — a GIGW requirement, not an add-on.
Over half of the site's traffic arrives from mobile devices — often from farmers in the field. Every page is built to load fast on a patchy rural connection, with large touch targets and text that stays readable without zooming.
Annual reports, research papers, technology bulletins, and project documents organised by year, division, and theme. A visitor can browse by category or search across all published content — something the old site couldn't do at all.
A dedicated section for official announcements, with each entry dated and archived automatically. Recruitment notices, tender documents, and circulars are published in a consistent format that visitors can scan quickly — critical for an institute that runs regular recruitment drives.[reference:2]
Part Two — Content Management System
The biggest change wasn't visual — it was operational. We built a CMS that lets NRCB staff manage every part of the site through a browser, with no technical knowledge needed and no dependency on an external developer for routine updates.
Content is created by one staff member and approved by another before it goes live — a structured editorial process that matches the ICAR content management policy.[reference:3] Draft, review, publish — every piece of content moves through the same workflow, which means nothing goes live without a second pair of eyes.
Notices and tenders carry a validity date. When that date passes, the system automatically moves the content to an archive — it doesn't delete it, but it removes it from the active listing so the site doesn't show outdated information. An ICAR content archival requirement met by design.[reference:4]
Different staff members have different permissions — a division head can publish research updates, an administrative officer can manage recruitment notices, and the director has full access. No shared passwords, no accidental edits to the wrong section.
A central library for images, PDFs, and documents — with automatic file-type checks, size limits, and a searchable index. Staff upload a tender PDF once and link to it from anywhere on the site, rather than re-uploading the same file on three different pages.
Government research institutes have specific needs — content approval workflows, archival policies, and a publishing rhythm tied to academic and administrative calendars. An off-the-shelf CMS would have required extensive customisation to meet these requirements. Building on a familiar, well-understood stack meant we could deliver exactly what the institute needed without the overhead of a platform that assumed a different kind of publisher.
Part Three — Hosting & Support
A website isn't a one-time project. It needs hosting that keeps up with traffic, security patches that arrive on time, and someone to call when something goes wrong. We provide all three.
Reliable, monitored hosting with enough capacity for the site's traffic patterns — which spike during recruitment drives, tender publications, and foundation day events. Uptime is monitored, and issues are caught before visitors notice.
Regular security patches, firewalls, and daily off-site backups. For a government institute, a security incident isn't just an inconvenience — it's a compliance failure. The site is hardened and monitored continuously.
A direct channel for institute staff when something isn't working — a page won't load, an upload fails, a menu needs adjusting. Support is responsive and handled by the same team that built the system, so issues are resolved with context, not from scratch.
What Changed
Developer tickets for routine content updates — staff publish directly through the CMS
WCAG 2.0 Level AA accessibility standard met, complying with GIGW requirements
Languages supported — English and Tamil — with parallel publishing
The institute's research, publications, and announcements now appear on a site that reflects the work behind them. Staff update content on their own schedule. Visitors find what they're looking for. And the underlying system stays maintained, so the site doesn't fall behind again.
The new site finally reflects the scale of work this institute does. Our staff can publish updates themselves, and the accessibility standards are met without any ongoing effort from our side.
ICAR-NRCB — Tiruchirappalli
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