The list was recently published online and people were requested to call police if they spotted the listed persons in the metro trains.
Topping the list is a 22-year-old illiterate man from Liaoning province who lives near the train station, has broken legs and a record of being caught begging on metro trains by police 309 times.
Ranking second is an 88-year-old woman from Anhui province who has been caught 303 times.
Police said she would beg whenever she lost money from "her mahjong gambling party".
The release of the list coincides with the launch of a campaign by the Xujiahui police station called "Say No to Beggars On the Metro".
The campaign encourages metro riders to send an instant text or voice message through Weixin, a popular social networking application on mobile phones, if they spot a beggar on the train in peak hours, China Daily reported.
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The release of the list of the most frequently caught beggars on the city's metro has stirred up a heated debate about how police should treat the beggars, the daily said.
Following massive coverage in the local media, many netizens have expressed sympathy toward "the disadvantaged group", and criticised the police for being "mean" to beggars.
Some netizens even said the list was humiliating to the vulnerable people.
"We could be nicer to those older and disabled beggars.
Their physical or mental imperfections catalogued them to their current social positions.
Rather than kicking them out of the metro train, the police could be lenient when treating them," said Dong Jieyu, a retired woman who often rides the metro in Shanghai.
Police denied ill-treating beggars.
"We did not arrest any of the beggars.
Instead, we treated them with food and water at our office," explained Li Lu, spokeswoman for Shanghai Public Security Bureau Corps said.