If we drop a column it gets dropped but the space which it was occupying stays as it is! In this article we would see the way to reclaim the space for a table which has a non-clustered Index. Create a table with non-clustered index in it: Create Table tblDemoTable_nonclustered ( [Sno] int primary key nonclustered, [Remarks] varchar(5000) not null ) Go Pump-in some data into the newly created table: Set nocount on Declare @intRecNum int Set @intRecNum = 1 While @intRecNum Begin Insert tblDemoTable_nonclustered (Sno, Remarks ) Values (@intRecNum, convert(varchar,getdate(),109)) Set @intRecNum = @intRecNum + 1 End Check the fragmentation info before dropping the column: DBCC SHOWCONTIG ('dbo.tblDemoTable_nonclustered') GO Output: DBCC SHOWCONTIG scanning 'tblDemoTable_nonclustered' table... Table: 'tblDemoTable_nonclustered' (1781581385); index ID: 0, database ID: 9 TABLE level scan performed. - Pages Scanned................................: 84 - Extents Scanned......