As the Railway minister, he has advocated instituting a rail regulator to fix rail fares, a policy that is diametrically opposite to the one by earlier railway ministers. He has also advocated de-politicizing the Railways and would like to restructure the Indian Railway Board, which lacked synergy before he joined. Trivedi believes that the Indian Railways can add 2% to India's GDP and is willing to go against his party's line of not hiking the fares. However, he believes the government must modernise the railways, for which a fare hike would not be able to generate adequate funds, and has publicly criticised the Prime Minister for not providing funds.. Trivedi is pushing for a national policy on railways, that would continue irrespective of political changes in the government. He has also said that the ministry is also open to the idea of privatisation, which would allow more funds to be allocated to help the system cope with capacity. He stepped down as the Railway Minister on 18 March 2012, a couple of days after presenting his first ever Railway Budget in which he increased passenger fare. This did not go down well with his political party, Trinamool Congress and in particular its head West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.