The paper describes the process of chemically depositing cadmium selenide nanocrystalline thin films on glass substrates with sodium selenosulphate serving as a precursor of Se2− ions. The subsequent study has focused on several fundamental characteristics of nanocrystalline thin films including their electrical conductivity, morphological structure and light interaction. The X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the synthesized CdSe films have nanocrystalline attributes with a cubic (zinc blende type) structure. TEM visuals demonstrate the spherical appearance of CdSe NCs. From the optical study, the direct band gap (Eg) of as-deposited films comes out to be 2.3 eV as compared to the bulk optical gap of CdSe (1.74 eV). The temperature dependence of dark conductivity (σd) of n-CdSe thin films shows characteristic Arrhenius type of activation. This work presents a comparison of the various characteristics of CdSe thin films made at room temperature (300 K) using three distinct complexing agents: trisodium citrate (TSC), nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) and triethanol amine (TEA).