Mr Maclay received his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin and master's in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government. He has also worked in the Office of Andean Affairs at the US state department. This is his third visit to India, for the SARI project. SARI counts on a collaborative and interactive research agenda drawing on the expertise of Harvard's Center for International Development, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras (now Chennai) and the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab. "Every time I visit, I go back and forth about my views on India. On one hand I go feeling India has done it. Then looking at the problems and complexities here, I think India will never be done," Mr Maclay told India Abroad News Service. India is too "complicated," he said, for want of a better word.

In the pilot phase, around 1,000 neighboring rural villages will be wired in each of two Indian districts. SARI has begun to create new connections in 50 villages in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, whereby the villages will have simultaneous telephone and Internet access by February 2001. For the villages, this would mean an online spot labour market, market prices and other agricultural information, e-mail and voice messaging and access to online government forms.

"Building on the lessons learnt from the pilot phase, we will extend access to 1,000 villages in Madurai and a second target area in northern India," Mr Maclay explained. Mr Maclay, eager to dispel any impressions of being a "technology missionary," is cautious while spelling out the "complications" involved. "India is great for planning, but it is the implementation that is important," he said. "The infrastructural problems can be very frustrating. The country has a long way to go before its telecommunication infrastructure can enable easy access to a majority of its people, he added. The farther one moved from an urban centre, the harder it was to gain access to information and communication.

He recalled a meeting with a top official of the Department of Telecom a year ago. "I asked him how would you handle competition after corporatisation of your department," he recalled. Mr Maclay was taken aback by the official's response - "We will just hire a marketing department". The e-governance expert is very interested in the results of a SARI survey to ascertain the value of information to the rural areas. "We are developing a new methodology to understand the information needs in the rural context," he said. "It is a lot better than sitting in big hotels having discussions".

In its initial research activities, SARI is gathering data from households, health clinics, markets and schools on topics such as current communication options, socio-economic characteristics and market activities. "The data will be used to create relevant performance indicators as a base for measuring socio-economic gains of the project," Mr Maclay said. The ultimate goal of the project is to create a local network effect by putting at least one connection in each village, offer access to schools and health clinics at low or no cost and unleash local champions and entrepreneurs. Why connect so many villages? According to Mr Maclay, SARI's magnitude is essential because it would allow the villages to benefit from the network effect, which will be far more empowering than a few connections placed only in the urban areas. In arrangement with India.CNET.ocm