The International Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), the worldwide apex controlling body of domain names, has just announced Hi-Tech's site 3domainregistry.com as the first Indian registrar for Top-Level Domain names (TLDs) - .com, .net and .org.

"We are confident of capturing 35 per cent of Indian market share since 3domain registry.com would be a big help for users in India wishing to register domain names," Hi-Tech Information's marketing director Rahul Agarwala told eFE.

At present, Indian users have to register domain names through resellers of American Registrars which not only charge higher rates but also at times do not guarantee full ownership of domain names.

Till the middle of last year, Network Solutions Inc (NSI) was the only registrar of TLDs in the world. To break this monopoly, the US government formed the non-profit ICANN. Since then, most of the major registering countries in the world have established their own registrars.

123domainregistry.com shall be offering domain name registration at the rate of Rs 600 per domain per year to individual users and Rs 450 for its partners. This would be half of the price charged by the US registrars. The Americans charge $35.

Agrawala said the company planned to invest Rs 10 crore over the next two years in technology, market development and setting up a 24-hour seven day call centre facility.