Andhra Pradesh that takes pride in its progressive and cyber-savvy image has been steadily jacking up the number of poor to expand the reach of its populist schemes. The Rs 2 per kg rice scheme, the latest in a series of sops, covers a whopping 1.80 crore families under the below poverty line (BPL) category, constituting 85 per cent of the state's population. Paradoxically, the union government has been reducing the central subsidy to various states, including AP, on the ground that number of BPL families has reduced over years following improvement in living standards and earning levels. Considering that an average family comprises four members, the number of poor in the state comes to 7.44 crore while the total population is just over 8 crore. It is an open secret that the number of poor is highly exaggerated, as a large number of BPL families exist only on paper. However, none of the political parties talk about the massive scam surrounding the determination of poverty and misuse of crores of public money in the name of welfare programmes. The BPL families are given white ration cards to gain access to a plethora of welfare schemes like subsidised rice, weaker section housing, old-age pensions and scholarships. The rice scheme alone entails an annual subsidy burden of Rs 2,000 crore to the state exchequer. The experts point out that if the number of BPL families is taken as an indicator of poverty, then AP should be the poorest state in the country. In another move to increase the number of beneficiaries, the state government recently decided to upwardly revise the annual income limit for the purpose of identifying BPL families. A family earning Rs 70,000 a year in urban areas and Rs 65,000 in rural areas will now be categorised as BPL as against the present limit of Rs 36,000. The social welfare department has justified the increase in the income limit on the ground that the minimum wages in the state have touched Rs 80 a day and that every family has a minimum of two earning members.