Section 26 — Appropriate Government to Prepare Programmes

• (a) educational programmes to advance public understanding, in particular of disadvantaged communities, on exercising RTI rights;
• (b) encourage public authorities to run such programmes themselves;
• © promote timely, accurate dissemination of information about their activities;
• (d) train CPIOs/SPIOs and produce training materials for public authorities.

• Compile, within eighteen months of commencement, a guide in its official language, “in an easily comprehensible form and manner”, carrying what a person needs to exercise the rights;
• update and publish it at regular intervals;
• the guide's minimum contents (§26(3)): the Act's objects; every PIO's postal/street address, phone, fax, email; the manner and form of requests; the PIO's assistance and duties; the Commissions' help; all remedies including how to appeal; the §4 voluntary-disclosure categories; fee notices; related regulations and circulars.

The Centre's realised version is the DoPT Guide on the RTI Act — the user guide this section contemplates; states owe their own official-language versions.

• Ask for the guide by RTI: “certified copy of the latest s.26 guide published under the Right to Information Act, with its date of last update.” A nil reply is itself telling — the duty is mandatory.
• Get the PIO directory: the guide must list PIO contacts; it is the cleanest route to the right addressee before filing.
• Training records: §26(1)(d) training materials and the schedule of PIO training in your district are reachable records — useful when a PIO's handling suggests none ever occurred.
• Regional-language access: where the state guide is missing or stale, that failure is a §25(5)-ready practice point.

The duty as enacted is a guide in the appropriate Government's official language; wider translations are good practice, not the statutory minimum.

It is published for the public; current versions sit on government RTI portals — and our filing guide walks the same ground for the citizen.

Use the §25(5) framing — a practice not conforming to the Act — in a §18 complaint to the SIC; ask the SIC to recommend compliance.

§26(1) is expressly “to the extent of availability of financial and other resources” — the guide duties in (2)–(4) are not so qualified.

• Section 4 — Proactive disclosure
• Section 5 — PIOs
• Section 25 — Monitoring and reporting
• The RTI Act, 2005 — current text
• All explanations
• The RTI Playbook book

1. Right to Information Act, 2005, Section 26.
2. DoPT, Guide on the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Last reviewed on: 27 August 2026. The invented 22-scheduled-languages claim corrected to the statutory official-language duty; the may/shall split and the guide's minimum contents stated from the text; citizen-use sections added.