How to use external jars in Merlin components?

All,

I am able to build and run the tutorials in Merlin using Maven.
I even built a small component of my own and tested it.  It works fine.
But now when I try to include some external jar files(on my local machine)
for that component, the build fails.
After some googling I found out that I need to have an entry for the
external jar file in
the project.xml file used by Maven.
Also the path for that external jar file should be mentioned in kernel.xml
under repository directive.
I did all that but the build fails and gives the following error :

Attempting to download <jar file name>.
WARNING: Failed to download <jar file name>.
The build cannot continue because of the following unsatisfied dependency:
<jar file name>

Can some one please help me out on this issue ? Has someone faced the
similar kind os issue?
Please revert back soon.

Regards,
Harvinder