An enhancement of Cadmium oxide (CdO) based catalyst activity was observed on modification with silver (Ag) by hydrothermal route in a short time and at low temperature. The products were characterized by XRD, Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XRD confirming the formation of CdO showed an intense diffraction peak at 32.73° with lattice plane (111). The IR spectrum shows characteristic peaks at 607, 1387 cm⁻¹ corresponding to Cd-O bonds. Both CdO and Ag modified CdO (Ag-CdO) showed band gaps of 2.76 eV and 2.56 eV respectively stretching into the red portion of the solar spectrum. On irradiation with Ultraviolet (Uv) light CdO-Ag showed 78.02% degradation of malachite green oxalate (MG), a hazardous dye within 175 min in comparison to native CdO (75.85% in 175 min). Photoluminescence (PL) studies demonstrated better emission intensity quenching in case of Ag-CdO which is particularly promising for photocatalytic applications.