Mumbai: There is about 40 percent shortage of skilled manpower in the infrastructure sector, according to experts. "The infrastructure sector is short of skilled manpower by about 40 percent from the existing number of employed. The annual demand for civil engineers is 4.27 million against the current availability of 27,000," President and Whole-time Director of L&T Finance Holdings, N Sivaraman, said here today. Meanwhile, the shortfall of civil engineers in this decade (2010-2020) is expected to be 39.4 million," he said. Infrastructure companies have been training their own manpower, so there is a need for more schools like Samvit to nurture the talent for this key sector, Sivaraman added. Echoing similar views, Arun Mudbidri, Founder and Principal Director of Samvit School of Infrastructure Business, Pune, said, "The 'real' sector has not been the hallmark of MBA schools. MBAs have focused on soft manufacturing industries like FMCG and consumer durables." "Consumer services have been a focus area for the B-schools, which include financial, banking, retail, IT, consulting, telecom. Hence, there is a need to develop a dedicated education stream other than civil engineering and architecture colleges for the infrastructure industry." Mudbidri said around 1.2 million people are engaged in the infrastructure activities and about 30 million in labor works. Even as around 58.3 million people are expected to be working in the infrastructure sector by 2020, there will still be a shortfall of 3.64 million architects and 1.1 million managers and planners during the same period, he said.