Dharan sub-metropolitan city has been in a budget vacuum for months due to the lack of public representatives. Since the sub-metropolitan municipality has not yet released the budget for the current financial year, financial transactions have been at a standstill for a month. Due to the dispute between the mayor, deputy mayor and ward president of Dharan, the city council could not be held since July 1.

According to the Local Government Operation Act 2074, the local levels must pass the budget for the financial year within the next June. However, due to the dispute of the people's representatives, even after months passed, the proposed appropriation bill and budget could not be passed by the city assembly, so Dharan sub-metropolitan municipality is legally without a budget. 

 Due to the dispute of the people's representatives, even after months have passed, the proposed appropriation bill and budget could not be passed by the city assembly, so Dharan sub-metropolitan city is legally without a budget .  Since the budget could not come on time, the payment work has stopped, while the revenue collection is being done at the old rate, according to the Deputy Metropolitan Office . Bhesraj Adhikari, senior accounting officer of Dharan sub-metropolitan city, said that the predetermined work of development construction, public service, plan implementation, employee's salary, payment of work etc. "Because the budget has not been brought, the financial transactions have stopped, the work has not been paid," he said. In the sub-metropolitan city last year too, the budget could not be submitted on time due to the dispute between the mayor, deputy mayor and ward presidents. The situation has become more complicated this year due to the dispute of people's representatives. As the mayor, deputy mayor, ward president and executive members could not reach an agreement, there is still no executive meeting, but the municipal assembly has not been decided. The city assembly has become uncertain due to the lack of coordination and consensus among the people's representatives. 

Mayor Hark Sampang has mentioned on social media that meetings are being postponed because of someone, sometimes due to someone else's reasons, and due to the compulsion to accept party directives, there has been a delay in the city assembly and budget making. Even after the meeting of 15 resource estimates and budget limit determination committee, if the discussion is not concluded, the budget preparation work will be confused and the emergency, developmental and regular work of the city will be affected . Sometimes because of whom, sometimes because of whom the meeting is being postponed . Due to the compulsion to recognize the party instructions, there has been a huge delay in the budget making," he wrote on Facebook. 

Since then, Deputy Mayor Aindravikram Begha said that despite repeated attempts, Dharan could not finalize the budget process as the differences were not resolved. He said that the city meeting was delayed due to legal process and political differences. He said that all the preparations for the municipal assembly have been completed and the executive meeting will soon be held to pass the ceiling. "The budget ceiling has been passed through the internal discussion, all the ward presidents and members of the executive have agreed," he said, "now it remains to present it to the executive". "We are waiting when he (mayor) will hold an executive meeting," he said. According to Surya Prasad Bhattarai (Manoj), the ward president of Dharan-17 and city spokesperson, he said that all preparations for the budget ceiling have been made through internal discussions and the only thing left is to be passed by the executive. "The executive committee will be sitting until Friday and the city assembly will soon be scheduled and the budget will be announced."

Last June, due to differences between Mayor Sampang and Deputy Mayor Begha, the budget making process was interrupted. On the 2nd and 3rd of last June, a clash was created in the sub-metropolitan office regarding the issue of labor donations. Before that, there was a dispute in the meeting of the budget ceiling and boundary determination committee. At that time, there was a tense situation after Mayor Sampang's supporters reached the office of the vice-metropolitan. The meeting was adjourned after 28 executive members, including Deputy Mayor Begha and ward presidents, submitted a written letter stating that the legal process was not completed before the executive meeting was called, preparations related to budget creation were incomplete and there was a lack of internal discussion, and that there was no reason to hold the meeting. 

Last June, the budget was also affected by the dispute between the people's representatives regarding the payment of the tarjali, which was imposed to protect the multilingual school in Dharan-16 Newo Basti . Some ward leaders, including Deputy Mayor Begha, argued that Tarjali money should not be released for the work of Shramdan, while Mayor Sampang took the stand that no other scheme would be paid if Tarjali was not paid. Due to the risk that if the federal and state conditional grant, supplementary grant and completed plan of the road board is not paid, the budget will be returned and its liability will be added to the sub-metropolitan city. Only ward presidents and executive members elected from UML, Congress and RPP participated along with locals in the on-site inspection and land transfer. Maoist-elected deputy mayor Begha and Ward-17 chairman Bhattarai did not participate. Deputy Mayor Begha said that they did not agree because it was an illegal act.

A few days later, after Mayor Sampang stopped the construction of a temporary police station under construction at Ward-16 Naulobasti, there was a dispute again. Locals including Ward President Murari Bhattarai protested against the mayor saying that the construction work of the police station will not be stopped. At that time, the controversy became fierce after the incident of sexual violence against a girl came out last May while Shramdan was going on in the multilingual school. Mayor Sampang, Deputy Mayor Begha along with the ward chairpersons arrived in the field and discussed after a consensus was reached on the dispute over the temporary police station under construction. The dispute was settled after Mayor Sampang said that there would be no obstruction in the construction of the police station as per the demand of the locals. He also promised to allocate 10 lakh rupees from the mayor's fund for the construction of the outpost in the next financial year. After settling these three disputes, the meeting of the budget ceiling and limit determination committee was held, but the budget could not be decided due to the lack of agreement on the distribution. 

Even when the last year's budget was brought, the Municipal Assembly could not be held on time . The time of the Municipal Assembly was fixed without completing all the budget procedures, the mayor tried to force the ceiling of the budget against the decision of the executive meeting and added the contract agreement of the employees who are in contract and temporary service  The town meeting could not be held on time as the dispute was not resolved. City Police Chief Vishnu Koirala and contract employees had a dispute over extension of term . The 15th town meeting was held on July 6 after the executive meeting decided to provide special facilities for those who did not participate in public service according to section 16 (c) (3) of the Local Government Service (Formation and Operation) Act 2080, before and after October 29, 2074.