Meerut: On March 26, while announcing the PM Garib Kalyan Package, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the first instalment of PM Kisan for 2020-21 will be paid ‘immediately’ to 8.69 crore farmers.Two weeks later, more than 1.82 crore farmers are yet to receive the Rs 2,000 that was due to them for the April to July period and which the finance minister had, on March 26, said will be paid ‘immediately’.According to data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, the first instalment of 2020-21 of Rs 2,000 has been transferred to 6.86 crore farmers, as of the evening of April 9, 2020.So, 1 in 5 farmers who Sitharaman had said will benefit immediately are yet to receive the transfer.In all, a transfer of Rs 15,400 crore has been made since the lockdown was announced, the ministry said. Of this, Rs 1,675 crore is related to dues from last year and Rs 13,726 crore pertained to 2020-21.As The Wire had pointed out when the financial relief package was announced, the announcement pertaining to PM Kisan did not mean spending beyond what was already budgeted. It also did not mean front-loading – as Sitharaman suggested – because front-loading would have meant that a greater proportion of what is supposed to be paid out through the year is paid in the beginning of the year.Also Read: What Doesn’t Add up in Nirmala Sitharaman’s Relief Package for India’s PoorThe announcement implied that the amount due to farmers in the first period of 2020-21 would be paid out ‘immediately’ but fell short of outlining what exactly this meant.That 6.86 crore farmers have been paid their first instalment of 2020-21 within 10 days of the financial year having begun – and within 14 days of Sitharaman’s announcement – does mean that the payment in the current period has been much quicker than in any other period since the scheme began with effect from December 2018.At the time the package was announced, the CEO of PM Kisan, Vivek Aggarwal, had told The Wire that he was ‘hopeful’ that payment will be made to 9 crore farmers by the end of the first week of April. That, however, has not happened.Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Photo: Reuters/FilesThe figure of 9 crore farmers – as opposed to 8.69 crore as Sitharaman said – mentioned by Aggarwal is also worth thinking about. That is the figure for total number of farmers who had been registered under PM Kisan when the package was announced.Since 6.86 crore farmers had been transferred their first instalment by April 9. This would mean that 2.13 crore farmers (or 23%) who are registered are yet to be paid their first instalment.Going a step further, 9 crore is not the total number of intended beneficiaries under PM Kisan. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the scheme in February last year, he said that 12.5 crore small and marginal farmers would benefit. Once the National Democratic Alliance was voted back to power, the government said that it was expanding the scope of the scheme to include all farmers, i.e. 14.5 crore beneficiaries.This means that less than 50% of the total intended beneficiaries under PM Kisan have received the first instalment for 2020-21 due to lower registration of farmers, which is a result of bureaucratic delays on the part of state governments.Also Read: Five COVID-19 Policy Mistakes India Could Have Done WithoutWest Bengal, for instance, has refused to be a part of the scheme and has not registered a single farmer with the result that none of its estimated 70 lakh farmers have been able to benefit from PM Kisan since the day it was implemented. As long as states don’t register farmers, the Centre cannot transfer money.Inefficiencies at the Central government level have also been identified, such as verification issues, Aadhar linkage problems and the ministry’s decision to not make retrospective payments. Collectively, it has meant that the scheme hasn’t quite performed as Modi would have hoped at the time he launched it.The Wire reported in January this year that a combination of these factors has meant that almost 75% of farmers did not receive all three instalments in the first full year ofPM Kisan’s implementation.As a result, a large sum of money allocated for the scheme was unspent in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 fiscal years. Cumulatively, Rs 95,000 crore was allocated during these two years and only Rs 56,000 crore, or 59%, was spent. So, Rs 39,000 crore allocated for PM Kisan had not been unspent.