ABSTRACT With the enduring progression of high population density, social economy and requirements of water supply, irrigation and hydropower, the water resource scarcity problem has been exacerbated in Odisha. Hence, the judicial operation of the Hirakud reservoir, which is considered the lifeline of Odisha, has become appreciably essential. Among various optimization techniques, metaheuristic algorithms are advanced techniques which can be applied for the optimal operation of a water reservoir. In this work, three metaheuristic algorithm-based optimization techniques, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Differential Evolution (DE) and Teaching–Learning-Based Optimization (TLBO) algorithms, are applied for optimal water management of the Hirakud reservoir. From the result, it was found that the efficiency of TLBO for irrigation release during the non-monsoon period was 99.45% compared with PSO with an efficiency of 97.3% and DE with an efficiency of 95.6%. The efficiency of TLBO for hydropower generation was 99.6%, whereas for PSO it was 98.8% and for DE it was 98.5%. It is found from the above experiment that TLBO showed a better performance than PSO and DE optimization techniques for the water management of the Hirakud reservoir. These metaheuristic techniques will provide suitable guidance for reservoir operations at times when the presence of experts is a must but they may not be available.